The Photography of Fatma Fahmy – Egypt

First a quote from this young lady rationalising her photography and the motivation behind it. “Photography is another world to me. It allows me to live different lives of different people. It allows me to stop moments in time by capturing them to show the world the beauty that possessed my heart and soul and make it last forever. I wish I could affect people’s lives with this magnificent art.” Fatma Fahmy – Cairo, Egypt For this post I have decided to review a number of images submitted to me last month. The collection are well crafted and composed showing a variety of content that adds credence to her statement. They are a combination of what in the west we would call ‘Street Photography’ and more controlled, observational portraiture.

“Eye Contact” by Fatma Fahmy

This image entitled “Eye Contact” does exactly what it says. It directly engages with the viewer with a delightfully captured expression that shows the happiness of a child no mater what his domestic environment, social background, living conditions or wealth. Simplicity is golden here and one cannot fail to empathise with this little boy. If one of the tools of a photographer is to create images that contain a story, then the story of this child’s life is is to be written by the viewer based upon its content. In truth, the off centre composition is not particularly necessary and does not add power or dynamics. The subject could have been centrally placed for that matter as the viewer finds it virtually impossible to stray their gaze from those eyes that express a simple, joy of life.

“Fisherman’s Net” by Fatma Fahmy

As a contrast, quite a lot of work has gone into this image, photographically with good control of depth of field, compositionally by careful subject placement and in post processing where the problems lie. My best advice to Fatma is ‘less is more’ and although this is a good composition, a clear storyline, convincingly engaged subject, the processing has left a few artefacts and issues that could easily be resolved. When such processing issues are visible they can detract from the all important content contained in the image, the subject themselves and the narrative.